Rubber Board chairman Sajen Peter says that the Union Commerce Ministry has ruled out any cut in the import duty of natural rubber from the present 20 per cent.
Mr. Peter said here on Wednesday that the assurance was given by Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma to a group of MPs from Kerala who met him in the morning.
According to him, in the case of import duty, the Union government will be implementing the recommendations of an expert panel constituted by the government on a directive of the Delhi High Court to look into the demands raised in a petition filed by organisations representing rubber consuming industries. The expert committee had made a recommendation to retain the import duty at 20 per cent, but to fix a ceiling of Rs. 20.46 a kg. The panel had arrived at this figure considering the average price of natural rubber during the past three years, which is Rs.102.32 a kg. According to Mr. Peter, the Minister said the import duty cap would be allowed in a phased manner, in lots of 25,000 tonnes.
The expert committee had finalised its recommendations after hearing the views of organisations representing growers.
These recommendations were welcomed by a meeting of the Rubber Board on July 31.
The natural rubber consuming industry had approached the Delhi High Court on the import duty issue in the light of the soaring prices in the internal and international markets. In the internal market, prices had touched a whopping Rs.186 a kg during the first week of August, forcing the consuming industry to shell out up to Rs. 37.20 a kg as import duty which remained at 20 per cent.
This had also upset the price integration of natural rubber in the internal and international markets.
Earlier reports of the Commerce Ministry slashing the import duty to 7.5 per cent had created panic in the internal market, which witnessed a steep fall in the price of natural rubber, generating sharp reactions from political parties, especially the Left and Kerala Congress factions.
